Cambodia Corps Inc

Nonprofit Issues:

Address:

915 Goebel Ave SavannahGA31404USA

Mission:

SITUATION: The ethnic minority Montagnard hill tribes are the original inhabitants of southeast Indochina. They sustained their tropical forest agroecosystem since 200 BC by living in harmony with nature. Due to shrinking earthly resources, the outside world is closing in on them and taking their timber, communal lands, and destroying what they''ve protected for subsequent generations since the beginning of time. There are 3.5 million acres of forests and jungle in Mondolkiri Province, Cambodia targeted by Chinese, Vietnamese, Malaysian, Thai, and other outside interests in collusion with corrupt Cambodian officials. 95% of these Montagnards are illiterate, they''re highly marginalized by the Cambodian Gov, and although the poorest people in Southeast Asia, they don''t want handouts and welfare. All they want is an educated leadership to peacefully ensure protection of their resources while integrating equitably in the global economy.MISSION: Mitigate global climate change by providing the indigenous ethnic minority Montagnard highlanders of Cambodia with an educated leadership to stop the destruction of their tropical forest agroecosystem by predatory development.Create the educated leadership from amongst their homeless child population. It will consist of 30 college graduates and 1,200 secondary school graduates providing a ratio of one to every five families and averaging 12 per village, cumulatively amounting to 4% of the rural Mondolkiri Province population.Provide graduates with further training in advocacy, human/gender rights, governance, environmental and cultural preservation, land rights, public health, and teachers ed. Employ 171 graduates in a village development and education program. Establish a community based organization for the balance of the educated leadership to engage in advocacy, pro poor market development, and to reduce illiteracy and improve public health.

Programs:

There's no other program like this in the world. See Paupers To Champions link at www.cambodiacorps.org.We have 130 secondary school students in our child's shelter on the northeast frontier. This aspect of our program needs to expand rapidly.Twenty shelter graduates attend universities and reside in our Indigenous Student Center in Phnom Penh. These graduates will provide the upper tier of the educated leadership for the Montagnards of Mondolkiri Province.

Reviews for Cambodia Corps Inc

I have been working in Mondulkiri province for 4 years now with the organisation Nomad RSI (www.nomadrsi.org). I know the work of CCi since 2009 as they contacted my organisation as they were helping their students from Mondulkiri which have graduated from University to find jobs. Then the next year my organisation started a new project and we have recruited, Chan Oeng, a CCi student who is still working with us nowadays. Then the next year we have collaborate with CCi to support young traditional healers from Mondulkiri province to attend the national course on traditional medicine in Phnom Penh. Two students have been living in the Indigenous Student Centre in Phnom Penh for 6 month. This was a great opportunity as both of them had never been to Phnom Penh or any city before and living in a house with many Bunong students had definitely help them to be comfortable and succeed in their study. Both have been graduated and came back to their village with the official recognition as being traditional healers by the Ministry of Health.
Supporting Bunong people to get University degree is a very important contribution to Mondulkiri development. Thanks to CCi we can see every year more young Bunong people with good education involved with NGOs, government agencies which are the best people to build a harmonious development of the province. For our organisation it is great to be able recruit those Bunong students with good education background as it have been one of the main difficulty that we faced, very few Bunong people had the opportunity to study at the university.

I first met Tommy Daniels and got to know about the work of CCi when I was requested to make an assessment of the school in Sen Monorom in 2002. I was already familiar with the province having worked for Medicines Du Monde (a French NGO) for over a year supporting the inadequate health service in the province, which is remote, sparsely populated and often referred to as the forgotten province of Cambodia. I was later a long term election observer for the Asia Foundation (for both Mondolkiri and neighboring Kratie province) – this is an American NGO committed to the development of a peaceful, prosperous, just, and open Asia-Pacific region. It was working in Mondolkiri that I fully understood the difficulties the tribal population and other marginalized people in Mondolkiri face especially in health and education. At the time very few, if any, NGOs were seriously addressing these issues and the government was unable. The work of CCi was like a beacon of shining light and I was very struck by the friendly atmosphere and optimism whenever I visited.
I am now working in rural Uganda with Medcines Sans Frontirieres (better known in N America as Doctors Without Borders) and have worked in several developing and conflict countries including Sri Lanka, Nigeria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Somalia, South Sudan and Lebanon. But I have a particular fondness for Cambodia in general – I first started working there in 1993 and I am actually married a Cambodian - but Mondolkiri in particular. I also met Tommy Daniels in Phnom Penh and was interested in how the work there directly links with the activities in Mondolkiri.
The commendable, tireless and valuable work that CCi has done and continue to do is so important to Sen Monorom as it educates the young Montagnard people who can then return to help this underdeveloped province with their knowledge and I can think of no better organization to support.
Chris Hall, Logistics Coordinator, MSF Uganda, chrishall97@gmail.com

I have known Tommy Daniels and have been familiar with the work of Cambodia Corps for almost ten years. They keep a low profile but are highly effective. they fill an imortant need that would not otherwise be met, either nmy the Cambodian Government or by other NGOs.

When was your last experience with this nonprofit?

While living in Japan I was the Executive Director of a Funding Foundation called Refugees International Japan and involved with Refugees International in Washington DC, in this capacity I visited many refugees areas to assess organisations which we were funding and had a special interest in Cambodia. In 2000 I moved to Portugal where I founded a small funding organisation called Friends of Cambodia. In 2004 I was looking for a project to fund and CCi was recommended to me. We visited them in Mondlekiri and we were very impressed with what they were achieving. Education is very empowering and the idea that the students should come back and share what they had learned was very appealing The staff was very helpful and the students were very happy. We have also been involved in their Phnom Penh programme and it has been very rewarding to be able to see the students graduate and move back to Mondlekiri. One of our supporter is a dentist and he now visits Cambodia each year to check the students teeth. Another way of supporting CCi. I have been most impressed with the whole organisation and especially with the dedication of Mr. Daniels and recommend it as a good organisation to support Geraldine Willcox MBE President Friends of Cambodia

When was your last experience with this nonprofit?

I traveled to Phnom Penh with another volunteer in May of 2010 expressly to work with the Cambodia Corps and the Montagnard highlander students whom the CCi supports. Our non-profit organization works with many Montagnard highlanders in Vancouver, Canada, helping to promote their cultural arts - particularly their sacred dance and music traditions, as well as language, crafts, and way of life. Our goal in volunteering in Cambodia was to enable the highlander students there through the CCi. We were very impressed with the advanced education support program that they had been running and their track record of graduated students. Our visit consisted of several parts: 1) I was bringing donations of laptops from Canada for the use of students at the CCi. We ensured that they were properly configured and students familiar with their use. They were clearly needed and well appreciated. 2) I provided training in computing science - specifically concepts of Linux, networking, security, and software development. This was primarily directed to students taking computing science degrees. 3) We toured Montagnard villages in the northeast where the students originated. Several students acted as our guides. We were introduced to families and parents and learned more about the challenges on-the-ground for Montagnard there - for education, work, and their way of life. We spent nearly one month in Cambodia. We came away all the more impressed by Mr. Daniels and the CCi. This takes a tremendous effort and organization to achieve - and the benefits and outcomes are clear and undeniable. I strongly support the CCi's mission of empowering and elevating the Montagnard people through advanced education, skills, and knowledge. Loki Jorgenson, Ph.D., President, Monsoon Society for the Cultural Arts of Southeast Asia

I've personally experienced the results of this organization in...

The quality of the students, their achievements, and the sheer number of graduands. As well, I have seen how the returning students are able to make an impact on their communities.

If I had to make changes to this organization, I would...

I am not aware of any specific shortcomings in their organization, given the challenges they routinely face and overcome.

Would you volunteer for this group again?

Definitely

For the time you spent, how much of an impact did you feel your work or activity had?

Life-changing

Did the organization use your time wisely?

Very Well

Would you recommend this group to a friend?

Definitely

When was your last experience with this nonprofit?

2010

What one change could this group make that would improve your volunteer experience?

We were met with welcome, kindness and appreciation, and received all kinds of support for our presence there. We lacked for nothing in our volunteer experience and felt supported in our contributions.

Did your volunteer experience have an effect on you? (teaching you a new skill, or introducing new friends, etc.)

Both in Phnom Penh and in Mondulkiri, the experiences were intimate and deeply personal. How could one not be affected? Visiting the students' villages made a considerable impression and put into context the highlander people and relationships that I have in Canada.

How did this volunteer experience make you feel?

Enriched and appreciative - both for what we have accomplished here in Canada but especially for the vision and achievements of the CCi there.

This organization is extremely well managed and highly successful. Accounting is exemplary and the use of funds is the most effective I have seen. The impact far exceeds that of other less well managed non-profits.